This invention relates to apparatus for producing a foil article and thereafter stripping said article from a composite sheet layered material and selectively separating the waste material. The subject matter of this application was filed in the United States Patent Office under the Disclosure Document Program and received Disclosure Document on July 26, 1978 and was entitled COMBINATION LAMINATOR AND SEPARATOR.
As can be ascertained, many products are formed having the name of the company printed on a label or a cover member. As such, these items may be fabricated from an attractive material such as a metallic foil and are used to enhance the product display. Examples of such items are lids for food products or covers for various containers.
In the prior art, the particular shape of the label or lid for a container is printed upon and then the configuration is cut from a composite laminate which may consist of a paper backing having secured on a surface thereof an aluminum foil or some other attractive metallic material. Essentially, the pattern that is cut from the laminate is the final product and the remainder of the laminate constitutes waste and is thus discarded.
In any event, in today's society based on the significant increase in raw materials, such items as aluminum or metallic foil are relatively expensive as compared, for example, to paper waste and so on. It is therefore one object of the present invention to provide apparatus for separating the foil waste from the paper waste and hence, enabling a user to direct the foil waste to a separate location where it can be recycled and used again.
There are many examples of machines in the prior art which serve to produce and print label structures. Such devices are sometimes referred to as strippers. An example of such a machine may be had by referring to U.S. Pat. No. 3,522,136 entitled STRIPPER APPARATUS FOR PRODUCTION OF LABELS issued on July 28, 1970 to F. P. Williams. Other patents such as U.S. Pat. No. 2,743,064 describe apparatus for feeding a combined carrier tape and adhesive tape and for separating one tape from the other. Still other U.S. Pat. Nos. such as 3,923,199, 3,953,278 and 3,966,534 show various machines and apparatus for separating labels or other stock from suitable laminates.
In particular, U.S. Pat. No. 3,966,534 entitled LETTER PRESS PRINTING MACHINE issued on June 29, 1976 to K. M. Oddy depicts a label stripping machine which uses a separator for separating the waste paper from the label. The patent uses a series of rollers and waste paper is stripped and collected from the backing sheet by employing an abrupt change of direction in the path of travel. The patent also discloses means for printing on the label.
In any event, the prior art is replete with a number of patents as indicated above which show various arrangements for stripping labels, lids or other stock from laminates, but the prior art does not disclose an apparatus for separating waste foil from paper waste to enable a user to separately collect each for purposes of recycling.